“Sorry. As if anyone would believe that was you in the photo. Adam’s body is way podgier than yours.”
Despite everything, Faith had to stop herself from laughing at the outrage in Vance’s eyes.
“Never mind the photos,” said Faith. “He was just trying to distract us with them and turn us against each other. Now we need to think about what we’re going to do.”
“We can’t just give them the product,” said Caleb. “The Maguires would kill us.”
“Probably. At best we’d all be put in intensive care.”
“And if we don’t then Ben and his friends will torch everything,” said Vance. “There’s no choice, we have to get rid of them.”
“And how do we get rid of four local heroes without anyone noticing?” said Faith.
“Do to them what Marlow did to me. They can’t set fire to things if they’re in prison and people die every day in prison from natural and unnatural causes.”
“That would be a good option,” said Faith. “But Ben’s the ringleader. He needs removing permanently.”
“I thought we’d dealt with some crazy situations before,” said Caleb. “But this takes the fucking biscuit.”
“We took down Marlow and his friends and we’ll take down this lot too.”
“The so-called legitimate people are worse than the criminals,” said Vance.
“Can the man who raises funds for sick children and poorly animals really be the same man who’s prepared to burn innocent people alive so he can sell drugs?” said Faith. “I know people aren’t always what they seem but this really doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe something happened in his life to turn him?” said Caleb.
“Nothing happened to him,” said Vance. “He just became a greedy bastard. That’s usually why people commit the worst crimes.”
“We need to come up with a plan fast,” said Faith. “They must know we’re not going to roll over.”
“We’ll hire private security to watch this place, Pulse, the restaurant, Mum’s house and our flats. We’ll tell them we’ve had anonymous arson threats and if they ask if we’ve told the police then Matthew can always confirm that we have.”
“Good idea,” said Caleb. “We can’t do it alone.”
“I’ll arrange that,” said Vance. “There’s a bloke I worked with on the force who left to set up his own business.”
“Police?” said Faith uncertainly.
“He wasn’t one of Marlow’s crew, in fact he hated him. One reason he left was because they kept clashing. He’s a good man.”
“All right Vance, I trust your judgement. I need to let Jules know and see how she wants to handle it. After they threatened our lives I think I know what she’ll say but I have to get her permission first.”
“You mean…,” began Caleb.
Faith nodded. “Perhaps.” She took out her phone. “I am not looking forward to this call.”
Faith stepped gratefully through the front door of her flat. On her way home she’d stopped by to see Blossom. Her application had been successful, so now they were on with the regular visits to make sure they were a fit together. It was even more of an incentive to get this mess with the firefighters wrapped up as quickly as possible. She didn’t want to bring Blossom back to a home that was under threat of arson.
“My friend’s people can’t start work until tomorrow,” said Vance as he came through the door. “So we’re on our own tonight.”
“Ben gave us twenty four hours,” replied Caleb. “So we should be safe until then.”
“That’s if they stick to their word,” said Vance. “Maybe we should have stayed at a safehouse tonight, like the others?” The rest of their siblings had taken Michael and Rose with them to the flat they’d run to when hiding from Marlow’s men. The only reason they hadn’t joined them was because there wasn’t enough room.
“This is a gated community,” said Faith. “It will be harder for them to gain access here and I don’t care what threats they throw about; no way are Ben and his friends insane enough to set fire to a block of flats containing over a hundred people.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am. Now let’s open a bottle of wine and forget about bloody firefighters for one night.”
“I’m going to grab a shower,” said Caleb. “Then shall we order pizza?”
“Why not?” said Faith. “Let’s enjoy ourselves.”
When they were certain Caleb was safely in the shower, Faith and Vance flew into each other’s arms.
“I don’t know what the weirdest part of today was,” said Faith, holding onto Vance, taking comfort in the feel of his arms around her. “Ben threatening our entire family and businesses or Caleb seeing photos of us having sex and not believing them.”
“I agree. I could have done without him going on about how disgusting it was.”
“We could go at it in front of him and he’d think it was an optical illusion,” she grinned.
“I’d like to test that theory,” he smiled down at her.
They kissed, Vance pushing her up against the fridge, Faith wrapping her thighs around his waist.
“I love my brother but I can’t wait until he’s moved back into his own flat,” Vance murmured into her neck.
“Mmm, yes. I want to try out those handcuffs.”
They spent some time gently kissing, forcing themselves apart when they heard the water in the shower turn off. When Caleb walked into the kitchen ten minutes later they were both sat demurely at the table cradling mugs of tea.
“There you go,” said Faith, holding out a mug to him.
“Cheers,” he said, picking it up and taking a sip. “Shall we order the pizza now?”
Vance got to his feet. “Order me a margherita,” he said. “I need to get some more clothes from my flat.”
“You shouldn’t go alone,” said Caleb. “I’ll come with you.”
“That will leave Faith alone up
